


The Scarlet Ibis

by soullessbrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Chronic Illness, Cruelty, Disabled Sam Winchester, Gen, Implied Relationships, In Which I Rewrite A Classic Story, Major character death - Freeform, Rewrite, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soullessbrothers/pseuds/soullessbrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean remembers the summer of the scarlet ibis, the storm across the Landing, and the year his disabled little brother learned to run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scarlet Ibis

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Scarlet Ibis](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/58119) by James Hurst. 



> For [casquecest](http://casquecest.tumblr.com/).
> 
> This is a slightly-Weecest rewrite of James Hurst's _The Scarlet Ibis_. I've kept the tone and the plot to the letter, but swapped his characters for characters from _Supernatural_ and added details of my own. The work is all mine, but the story itself is his. No copyright infringement intended.

It was in the break of summer, sun stretched too far before he had reached autumn, when the ibis bled out by the old oak tree. The base of the garden had dimmed, Mary’s herbs overgrown with thyme instead of lavender. Rank musk had spread over dahlias and the fuschias waned despite John’s constant water. The lilies lived. They spread in pots, a throw of white over faded green and crept into the house with mourning nods. Bitter, their stamens filled every room of the house, from basement to attic, the acrid scent caught under blankets. Dean can smell it. Gears of old cars and grease lodged under his nails are not enough to dampen the taste of lilies and rainwater storm from a childhood he won’t remember. The oak is gone, grindstone in her place outside the kitchen window. If nightingales sing on the lower branches, their songs are cut by leaves long disappeared and die out on the wind.

Dean stands at the window. He imagines that the grindstone turns, moves against its grain and settles a new tune. The changes have melted. Grass grows around the base where soil had once covered roots, and he remembers Sammy. Sammy was a crazy brother, the greatest that Dean could have, but crazy nonetheless. He wasn’t a crazy-crazy, not a broken scream like old Mr Crowley and his invisible dogs that he feeds out by the road, but a sweet crazy, a boy who was built in dreams.

He was born when Dean was four and was, admittedly, a disappointment. All head, that thin body struck grey against his purple face, ancient wrinkles set into his skin, he was born to die. John had Mr Turner, a carpenter with a sharp mouth, build a mahogany coffin with velvet run inside. Sammy didn’t die. Three months old and he breathed long enough for John and Mary to decide to name him. Samuel Henry. He was named after strong men, Mary’s father, John’s, like the old hunter and scholar could rise from their graves and tie one withered stem to withstand hurricanes. They already knew it would look good on a tombstone.

Dean had always been strong. As soon as he walked, he climbed. He grew to wrestle with his father and broke fast over fields, tame the tallest trees and skip himself from vine to vine quicker than any stone across the water in Old Roman Swamp. When Mary had filled, he had chattered at her bump and told the unborn baby every plan. There would be a sibling to run with, to perch at the top of the double-forked pine and shoot spitballs at rare passers-by. Those same stories he told his swaddled brother, until Mary choked and admitted Samuel might not be “all there.”

It had hurt. The shattered maps that Dean had laid brought surges through him. He plotted and thought to end unkindness with the soft side of a pillow. One afternoon he dropped it when he peered through the wooden bars of Samuel’s crib. Head poked through, Samuel Henry had turned his head, caught green eyes with hazel-gold and beamed. Dean raced through the house. He bounced from doorway to doorway and shouted, “Mom, he smiled, he’s all there, swear he is!”

Dean was right. He was. Whilst he lay in that crib, they stretched in to stroke his hair and called him Samuel Henry. Formal, stuffed, the names straight back to ancestors, it weakened as he roamed. He started to crawl, he started to talk and the name slipped.

It was Dean who renamed him. When Sam crawled, he lolled his tongue. Stuck between his teeth, all concentration and no grace, every time his name was called he would spin and drag in circles. He looked more like the dog Ms Moseley had, a scruffed pup that didn’t know whether to come or go, so Dean named both with Sammy. Mary didn’t like the link to animal, but when Sammy heard it he would stretch his dimples wide. John would laugh. A dog’s name was better than Samuel Henry. It was kinder, too. No one could expect much from such a childish name. Although Sammy kept to his crawl, his words didn’t stop to breathe. They waved their hands, shook their heads and learned how not to listen.

The drags wouldn’t end, so John built Sammy a cart with scraps from Uncle Bobby’s yard. Welded to last, there was a thick pulley and it was Dean’s job to yank him around. If he so much as touched his sneakers, Sammy would wail, stick out his little arms and beg to follow, loud enough to echo and have Mary call, “Dean, take Sammy with you.”

He was a burden. The doctor’s mantra shuddered. Sammy couldn’t be too hot, too cold, too tired. He had to be treated gently. Lists of don’ts were strung from his neck with chirped self-reminders. Dean ignored all of them. Sammy’s skin was sensitive and his eyes burned in sunlight, so around flopped bangs he was to wear a straw hat that cut extra glare. Over bumps in the fields where Dean pulled him, Sammy tugged himself to the side of the cart and that hat fell behind him, another passenger, whilst his hair scraped back.

There was no escape. Dean tried to discourage and leave Sammy behind, but that just left him more excited. Beaten, Dean decided to show him the only true beauty that he knew, Old Roman Swamp. White cedars sprung from the still water and green played across the skin. Sammy’s eyes filled. He leaned from the side of his cart and grazed his fingers through thick grass. He began to cry.

“Jesus, Sammy, what’s wrong now?”

“It’s, it’s so pretty,” he whispered. “Really pretty, Dean.”

They travelled across roughened fields to Old Roman Swamp most days after that. Dean taught him about the trees and the insects he’d learned from John and ached to climb, but when he strayed too far, Sammy sobbed until he had Dean’s hand.

Cruelty bloomed. One afternoon, Dean dragged Sammy to their barn loft and showed him his casket, told him how they had thought that he would die. It was dusted with a layer of powered corn cob to silence rats and a family of owls hid over in one corner. They were silent for a long while. Dean glanced between the wood and Sammy’s scrunched face.

Minutes passed as Sammy studied, until he decided, “That’s not mine.”

“Sure is,” Dean said. “And you’re gonna touch it before I take you down.”

“I’m not gonna touch it,” Sammy glared, sullen.

“You don’t touch it and I’m gonna leave you here.”

He shifted inches away and made it look like he would climb down himself.

Frightened, Sammy screamed. “Don’t go, Dean, please!”

Dean waited by the ladder. Sammy shook. He bit his lip and stretched out towards the coffin. As soon as his fingers brushed the lid, he squealed. One of the owls shrieked its own fear and flew out, wing-beats thick. They spread poison powder over them both, scared them white. Sammy froze. Dean fought his own shake and put him over his shoulder to carry down. Away from the coffin and dead air, he lay Sammy in the grass. Even there, he clung to Dean and cried.

“Don’t leave me, please, please, please don’t leave me.”

When Sammy was five years old, Dean couldn’t bear to be trapped with a brother that couldn’t walk, so he set out to teach him. Down at Old Roman swamp, caught in the heady musk of bay flowers, the spring fell heavy on his ribs.

“I’m gonna teach you how to walk, Sammy.”

“But I can’t walk.”

Dean snorted. “Who says so?”

“Mommy, doctor. Everyone.”

“Man, you can walk, Sammy,” Dean said. “Like I said. I’m gonna teach you.”

His hands shoved under Sammy’s arms and stood him up. He collapsed. The bones in his legs were withered and muscles around them had never lived. It was painful. Over and over, Dean stood him up to watch him fall down. His chest rushed tight and he tried again. That whole summer, he pulled Sammy’s cart down to the swamp and set him on his feet, a hundred times each afternoon, thousands in a week. There were times when he thought that Sammy wasn’t helping and he growled.

“Don’t you wanna learn how to walk?”

Sammy nodded.

“Well, if you ain’t gonna try, you ain’t never gonna learn.”

Sammy ducked his head, but Dean raised it to painted pictures of old men, bearded, Sammy’s long, wrinkled legs dragging from that same, rusted trailer. He said that in another hundred years, he would still have to tug him, one hand on the pull and the other on a walking stick. That made Sammy move.

After weeks of their practice, Sammy stood alone for a few seconds. When he fell, Dean grabbed him and laughed, cradled him in his arms and kissed his lips. They both dropped to the grass and held each other. Dean kissed again, Sammy next, and they forgot to try again.

“You did it, Sammy.”

“’Cos of you.”

Laughter faded and they cried together. Sammy buried his face in Dean’s neck and Dean in Sammy’s hair. That night, they lurched back home in twilight to rapped knuckles and worried tears. Dean climbed into Sammy’s bed and they kissed to fall asleep.

More practice and they chose a day. Breakfast time, Dean wheeled Sammy to the dining room door, out of sight of Mary, John and Uncle Bobby. He bent his head around the frame and made them swear not to look, to turn their backs until they were ready. His arms snaked under Sammy’s as he helped him stand and then announced that they could turn. There was silence. Sammy took his time, walked slowly to his chair and sat at the table. Mary choked. She rushed to Sammy to wrap him tight before John did the same. Uncle Bobby hollered a curse and slapped John on the back before he scooped Dean up and told him he was proud.

“Dean taught me,” Sammy said, bright. “Said I could and I did. Dean’s the bestest brother ever.”

They jostled Dean then, passed him around and smothered him with hands and kisses. He started to cry. Praises were ashes for the boy that gave his brother legs because he was ashamed of him without them.

Months passed and the cart was stored away, abandoned with the coffin. That’s where it still rests, under layers of powdered cob and time.

Dean was unstoppable. Sammy could walk, impossible made, but it wasn’t enough. New plans were made, a training program to craft the brother he had promised himself years before. He didn’t tell his parents. Sammy beamed, excited, and they decided that if he could walk in weeks, he could run, swim, climb and fight before school. Less than a year away, they spent their rainy days indoors and scribbled what to do in their bedroom, kissed at every goal they underlined.

On the hottest days, they walked to Devil’s Gate Landing so Dean could teach him how to swim and row a boat. Sometimes, they waded out to the soft cool of Old Roman Swamp and climbed the vines or sparred where he’d learned to walk. Promise followed them. They learned the songs of every bird and wrapped tight when the sun dimmed, nose to nose in the grass before they trudged the way home.

So came the break of summer. School a few weeks away, Sammy was behind his schedule. On the vines, he swung only inches from the ground. When he swam, he paddled like the dog he had been named after, slow strokes that were as painful as his crawl. Together, they watched the date and doubled their rush. Dean made Sammy swim until he heaved and his eyes glazed. Once, he pushed hard enough to stumble to the ground and wheeze his cries.

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean urged. “You can do it, c’mon. You don’t wanna be different to the kids at school, right?”

He sniffled. “Does it matter?”

“Hell yeah. C’mon.”

In those last days, Sammy wilted. Fever sweats dotted his forehead and razed his cheeks. The flush spread to his neck, but he was left with a shiver and skin like frost under blankets made for winter. Mary felt his face and worried he was ill. At night, his sleep cracked and he whimpered. Nightmares tied around his throat until Dean spooned his back and leaned to kiss bad dreams away.

“’S’okay, Sammy. ’S’okay.”

Midday on Saturday, before school was due to start, Dean kept their time. Sammy’s training had tarnished them both, had lost the shine weeks before, but grim reaps of determination kept them at their task. Two days could make a difference, they thought, and Dean clung to that one afternoon where Sammy had stood for the first time. They had made impossible before and could do again.

The family of five sat around the dining table to eat. The air still, they cranked open every window and door to catch a hint of breeze. They talked and John promised that he would walk the boys to school, together in the same building, and Mary promised Sammy’s tears that his brother would be close as soon as lessons were done.

Outside, there was a flutter, a strange, croaked sound that shuddered into the house. Sammy stopped the fork that was almost to his lips. His eyes popped and he arched closer to Dean.

“What’s that?” he whispered.

Dean jumped. He ran fast enough to knock his chair over with the force, and before Mary could scold him to remind him about _excuse me_ , Sammy had stumbled out to join him. His fingers laced through Dean’s and he gasped.

“It’s a big red bird!”

Another croak thrummed. John and Mary stood in the doorway and they all had to cup hands over their eyes to look up against the light. Through breaks in the leaves, they saw it. Perched on the uppermost bow of the old oak tree was a bird, burnt orange with a beak that curved a sad line down, black against those stark feathers. Long, thin legs bent as it clung and its wings drooped. It battered them once, weak, to keep balance. As it wavered, they watched a feather fall to the base of the tree.

Sammy held his throat with a free hand, mouth open. Dean had never seen him stand still for so long. He squeezed their hands, but Sammy couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“What is it?” he asked.

The bird tried to spread its feathers. A beat, its legs shook and it lost its footing, wings out of sync as it failed to fly, more feathers freed as it cracked a branch, a second, and hit its way down from temporary nest to knock limbs until it crumpled to the ground. Sammy whimpered and Dean held him closer. The bird’s swan neck was twisted and snapped, wrought backwards, talons curled up, legs limp near its belly. Its last grasp at grace were those wings, red to orange, the tips covered black.

“Go get me my bird book,” John ordered. “Let’s see what it is.”

Dean untangled himself and dashed back inside the house. He searched the shelf for the right reference and handed the book over. All sound was hushed as John squinted over the pages to find the right one.

“Here,” he said, and tapped over a picture. “This is it, boys. Scarlet ibis. Says here it lives in the tropics, down south where it’s hotter. South America to Florida.”

“But, but that’s miles, Daddy.”

John nodded at Sammy, ruffled his hair. “I know. Guess a storm must have brought it here. It’s travelled pretty far out, but sometimes not even birds can fight the wind.”

Uncle Bobby poked his head out of the window to see the fuss. “Dead bird’s just bad luck. ’Specially a red one. We gonna eat before this gets cold, or am I gonna die of starvation?”

The rest of dinner was quiet. Dean turned his thoughts to more of Sammy’s training and he elbowed him. They swallowed fast and excused themselves before the adults were done, all to hurry to Devil’s Gate Landing. Two days and Sammy had a long way to go if he was going to be the brother he wanted before school began. The sun burned through their shirts and Sammy panted through the journey. By the time that they had reached the Landing, he said he was too tired to swim. Instead, Dean found a skiff and they climbed in. Sluggish as the heat, Sammy melted against the side when their boat followed creek-tide.

There had been enough rest. Far enough along the water, Dean sat up and dragged Sammy’s shoulders. He thrust the oars into his hands and ordered him to row against that rush of water. Ash smudged over the sky. Sammy puffed harsh breaths and Dean watched the clouds grow. Grey thickened to black. When the skiff reached the bank, veined lightning crackled overhead. Thunder snarled, loud enough to hide laps of the water and the far sounds of the sea. The sun fell and dark streaked in its place. Exhausted, Sammy tripped out of the boat, slipped into the mud. Dean grabbed him. Sammy smiled, but it dipped at the edges. Dean’s was a mirror. The promise was broken. Sammy had failed. With threatened storm, they started on the walk back home.

Lightening followed. Each crash flew closer. Every fresh streak of light widened. Sammy walked so tightly to Dean’s side that his feet caught Dean’s sneakers. Dean hissed. He walked faster to stop a fall, but Sammy matched his pace. Faster again and Sammy kept up. He broke into a run and Sammy copied his strides. Another bolt above smashed a cloud apart. Rain crashed down through the trees, hard enough for the branches to bend low. In their path, there was another flash. One of the cedars shattered under electric heat and splinters, shards of trunk exploded out. After the next roar of thunder left a ring to Dean’s ears, through that wild gale, he heard a scream that was too quiet.

“Dean, don’t leave me!”

Sammy had fallen behind.

“Don’t leave me, Dean, please, please, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”

Soaked, bitter, Dean glanced over his shoulder. There was Sammy, too small, too thin, legs the brittle sticks left by that ruined cedar. The brother that had been forced on him, the millstone that Dean had dragged for as long as Sammy could speak. He could drown in the rain. His clothes stuck to him as thickly as Sammy did and all he could feel were those arms tied to his hips and the wrong that he felt in the night. Hard drops stung his face with the heat of his own tears. Dean needed to breathe, to escape, and he ran faster, slapped his feet through the mud to leave a wall of rain between them.

He ran until he tired. The rage and selfishness died as the wind fell. Ribs heaved out. He turned and waited, vision blocked by the downpour.

“Sammy?”

Dean walked the way that he had come, careful in case Sammy ran and knocked them both down. He retraced his steps and found Sammy a while back, huddled under a spindle tree, its dark orange flowers curled against the rain. Sat on the ground, knees hunched up to his chest, his face was buried in his arms.

“Hey. C’mon, Sammy. Almost home.”

He didn’t answer. Dean reached to touch his forehead and Sammy lolled back. Blood crossed his mouth and his chin, neck, shirt were painted a startling red.

“Sammy! Sam!”

Dean knelt in the mud and grasped his shoulders. He shook hard, rough enough for Sammy’s head to roll. The only reply came from the rain, the steady beat of water to earth. Sammy sat awkwardly. His neck looked even slimmer, longer in the storm-light. His legs, bent so sharp at his knees, seemed more fragile.

“Sam. I. Please don’t leave me, Sam.”

Tears fell. Through that blur, Sammy’s red was more familiar.

“Sam!”

More rain and his feet slipped. Dean gathered him, wrapped his arms and threw over Sammy’s still, wired frame. For a long time, it seemed forever, Dean lay there crying and sheltering his fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.


End file.
